Wednesday, March 26, 2014

The U.S. wants its allies to spend more on defense. Here’s how much they’re shelling out.

The United States has long urged its allies -- particularly European governments -- to spend a greater share of their budgets on defense. American officials have warned that defense cuts in recent years by many members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have created a two-tiered system in which some nations are freeloading off of those that continue to invest heavily in defense.
Several capitals have done little more than pay lip service to warnings from Washington, which continues to spend approximately 4 percent of its gross domestic product on defense.
The United States has shouldered a higher share of NATO’s defense expenditures in recent years. According to NATO’s 2013 annual report, Washington was paying 73 percent of the alliance’s defense expenditures, up from 68 percent in 2007.
NATO leaders have demanded that members spend at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense, but several have struggled to meet that threshold. Currently, few European countries are meeting that benchmark. By way of comparison, Russia spends 4.5 of its GDP on defense.

Here’s a look at how European countries -- both in and out of NATO -- and how much of their GDP they spent on defense in 2012 and 2013, based on World Bank statistics. (NATO countries are marked with an asterisk.)
Georgia: 2.9 percent Britain*: 2.3 percent
  • Greece*: 2.6 percent
France*: 2.3 percent Poland*: 1.9 percent Portugal*: 1.8 percent Italy*: 1.7 percent Bulgaria*: 1.5 percent Finland: 1.5 percent Denmark*: 1.4 percent Norway*: 1.4 percent Germany*: 1.3 percent Sweden: 1.2 percent Belgium*: 1.1 percent Lithuania*: 1 percent Spain*: 0.9 percent Switzerland: 0.8 percent Austria: 0.8 percent Hungary*: 0.8 percent Luxembourg*: 0.6 percent
The disparity in defense spending became clear when the U.S. and some allies took the lead in backing rebels seeking to oust Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi in 2011. Then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said the operation had revealed just how reliant the alliance remains on the hardware and coffers of just a few members.
“We need to use this moment to make the case for the need to invest in this alliance, to ensure it remains relevant to the security challenges of the future,” he said in a speech in Brussels in October 2011.
  • The issue has received renewed attention in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
The World Bank also has a helpful map and table with spending data:..........http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/03/26/the-u-s-wants-its-allies-to-spend-more-on-defense-heres-how-much-theyre-shelling-out/?wprss=rss_homepage&clsrd
26/3/14
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  • US, allies may buy more than 3,100 F-35 jets

WASHINGTON — The United States and its allies plan to buy more than 3,100 new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter warplanes in the coming years. Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor for the US$392 billion (S$497 billion) weapons programme, is developing three variations for the US military services and eight partner countries that helped fund the plane’s development — Britain, Australia, Italy, Turkey, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Canada.
South Korea this week said it would join the two countries outside the group, Israel and Japan, that have placed orders for the jet. Singapore and Belgium are among other countries that have expressed interest.

The conventional landing A-model will be used by the US Air Force and most allies, revealed data provided by Lockheed Martin and defence officials in the US and other purchasing countries. The B-model, which can take off from shorter runways and land like a helicopter, will be used by the US Marine Corps, Italy and Britain, while the C-model, or carrier variant, will be used by the US Navy and Marine Corps.
The US is buying more than 2,400 F-35s. Outside of the US, the biggest buyer is the United Kingdom, which plans to buy a total of 138 F-35 B-models. Britain has so far committed to buying 48 of the new planes and is expected to announce plans for the next 14 jets soon. It has already received three jets.
Italy initially planned to buy 131 F-35 fighters, but curtailed its order to 90 jets in 2012. It is now slated to buy 60 F-35A models and 30 F-35Bs, but budget pressures may force another reduction of up to half of the remaining jets.
Other major buyers include the Netherlands (37 jets and possibly more later), Turkey (100), Australia (100), Norway (52), Denmark (possibly 30) and Israel (19, with future orders of up to 75)....................http://www.ellanodikhs.net/2014/03/us-allies-may-buy-more-than-3100-f-35.html
26/3/14

5 comments:

  1. Obama pide a la UE que se refuerce militarmente frente a la amenaza rusa...

    La OTAN enviará más tropas al Este
    Washington reprocha en Bruselas la estrategia defensiva y energética de la Unión
    -----
    Los límites están cada vez más claros: el estatus quo actual en Ucrania es tolerable, pero el territorio OTAN es intocable. La Unión Europea y Estados Unidos volvieron a amenazar este miércoles con incrementar las sanciones si Rusia da un solo paso más en Ucrania, y sobre todo elevaron varios peldaños su apuesta si Moscú se atreve a ir incluso más allá. “Debemos asegurar una mayor presencia en los países más vulnerables”, dijo el presidente estadounidense, Barack Obama, tras la cumbre UE-EE UU en Bruselas. Obama afeó a los socios europeos su estrategia de defensa y les conminó a incrementar el gasto militar para reforzar la Alianza Atlántica. La OTAN recogió el guante de inmediato: su secretario general, el danés Anders Fogh Rasmussen, aseguró que habrá “medidas adicionales para reforzar la defensa colectiva”, incluyendo “planes de defensa actualizados y más desarrollados, ejercicios reforzados y despliegues apropiados” en la zona de tensión.

    Sin decirlo con claridad, el comunicado divulgado por Rasmussen tras una corta entrevista con Obama revela la voluntad de activar una estrategia de disuasión para abortar los potenciales planes del presidente ruso, Vladímir Putin. Con la habitual jerga imposible de la OTAN, Rasmussen aludió a los planes de cooperación militar en la zona más amenazada por el desafío ruso —Polonia, los países bálticos y Rumanía, básicamente— y a la posibilidad de realizar ejercicios militares más allá de los ya previstos. La alianza envió hace un par de semanas dos aviones de vigilancia AWACS a las fronteras polaca y rumana con Ucrania. Y fuera del marco de la organización militar, EE UU reforzó su colaboración con Varsovia con el envío de 12 aviones de combate F-16............http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2014/03/26/actualidad/1395848835_508134.html
    26/3/14

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  2. Lithuania should raise defense funding to 2% of GDP within 5 years — president...

    Lithuania has to increase the funding of its defense needs up to 2% of the GDP within the next 5 years, says the Baltic state’s President Dalia Grybauskaite.

    In her annual address to the parliament she called “for pooling efforts and preparing for new challenges.”

    “It is necessary to urgently upgrade the national agreement of political forces not only on foreign and security policy, but also on adequate defensefinancing,” Grybauskaite said, stressing the need for lifting defense funding to 2% of the GDP. “There is no other way. We should be able to defend ourselves before we get assistance.”

    Member-states of the North Atlantic Alliance concluded a kind of an unofficial agreement obliging to invest funds equal to 2% of the GDP into military. Lithuania has never invested such funds into its armed forces. At the moment it allocates the sum equal to 0.8% of the GDP.

    Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius said by 2016 the country might increase this amount to 1%, refraining from making any forecasts for the future.
    http://en.itar-tass.com/world/725542
    27/3/14

    ReplyDelete
  3. Money for nothing? Boeing says F-35 isn’t so stealth after all...

    As the price of the Pentagon’s most expensive weapons endeavor ever soars even further, critics are calling into question the cost and capabilities of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program.

    When all is said and done, the United States Department of Defense is expected to spend over $1 trillion on acquiring a fleet of the fancy stealth jets. But while concerns have been raised repeatedly regarding the program for years now, some new reports suggest that the military might soon sign-on to buy other state-of-the-art aircraft.

    On Friday this week, Military.com reported that the US Navy has not only decided to drop the number of Lockheed Martin-made F-35s it plans on purchasing from 69 to 36, but that 22 new EA-18G Growlers built by Boeing have been added to a list of unfunded priorities.

    Reporters Kris Osborn and Michael Hoffman wrote for the website that Boeing “has worked not so quietly this past year to offer the Navy an escape hatch from the costly Joint Strike Fighter program.”

    According to their report, since at least last summer Boeing has been urging the Navy to buy more F/A-18 Super Hornets and Growlers as concerns continue to emerge about the F-35.

    As RT reported extensively in the past, the F-35 program has been anything but a success for the DOD thus far — just last month, in fact, it was found out that ongoing software problems were going to push delivery of the Joint Fighter fleet even further behind schedule.

    But now in addition to the continuously increasing costs, the F-35's actual ability to stealthily soar through the sky is being called into question.

    Mike Gibbons is the vice president for Boeing’s Super Hornet and Growler programs, and has good reason to talk down the F-35s—after all, less money to Lockheed Martin likely means more for his firm. Regardless, Gibbons told Osborn and Hoffman that the F-35 is no longer as advanced of a stealth craft as once claimed, and is not as effective as the Growler when it comes to countering a wide spectrum of air defense systems............http://rt.com/usa/154956-stealth-jet-f35-growler/
    25/4/14

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  4. F-35 fleet grounded for the eighth time over unknown engine issue...

    As the cost of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet continues to grow, so do the headaches: the United States military announced on Thursday that its entire fleet of aircraft has been grounded until engine inspections are completed.

    The decision comes as the Pentagon struggles to find the source of yet another problem with the $398.6 billion program. On June 23, an F-35 caught fire as the pilot attempted to take off at a Florida air base. According to Reuters, one unidentified source described the incident by saying, "The engine ripped through the top of the plane.”

    In the most recent Reuters report, the military said it still had not highlighted the cause of that fire, and that new inspections are being put in place in order to assess the capability of the entire fleet.

    "Additional inspections of F-35 engines have been ordered, and return to flight will be determined based on inspection results and analysis of engineering data," the Defense Department said in a statement to the news service on Thursday.

    According to the Burlington Free Press, the incident is also under review by the Air Force Safety Investigation Board. That overview could take up to a month to finish.

    "The flights have paused while we figure out what went wrong," 1st Lt. Hope Cronin, a spokeswoman at Eglin for the Air Force's 33rd Fighter Wing, told the Free Press.

    As noted by Gizmodo, this marks the eighth time the entire F-35 fleet has been grounded. The last time also occurred in mid-June, when an engine oil leak forced the military to inspect 104 of its jets. Three of the F-35s failed the test. It’s currently unclear when exactly the F-35 fleet could be back in the skies, but plans to fly a jet for a July 4 naming ceremony of Britain’s latest aircraft carrier have already been cancelled.

    There are also tentative plans to fly the jets during two air shows in the United Kingdom on July 11 and 14, though no final decision has been rendered.

    "We will contribute to the return to flight determination, and will aim to do what is prudent for the enterprise at large without compromising the ongoing mishap investigation," Air Force Lieutenant General Chris Bogdan said to Reuters....................http://rt.com/usa/170376-entire-f35-fleet-grounded/
    4/7/14

    ReplyDelete
  5. Face aux retards de réalisation d'un programme d'importance critique du F-35, les Etats-Unis et le Japon auront du mal à réagir pendant un certain laps de temps aux actions surprises de la marine chinoise en mer de Chine orientale et autour de Taïwan.....

    Une récente panne de l'avion de chasse américain de cinquième génération F-35 accompagnée de la destruction du moteur a cloué au sol tous ces chasseurs pour plus d'un mois et a empêché leur participation au salon aéronautique de Farnborough. Cette mésaventure, qui n'est pas la première pour le projet F-35, pose les questions sur les délais de leur transformation en facteur réel de l'équilibre des forces en Asie-Pacifique.

    Outre l'US Air Force, l'aviation de la marine et l'aviation du Corps des Marines des Etats-Unis, les clients en puissance de cet avion sont la Corée du Sud (40 avions) et, ce qui est plus important, le Japon (42 avions). Les deux pays sont encore disposés à en acheter pour leurs forces aériennes. En outre, les navires de débarquement sud-coréens les plus récents et les destroyers porte-avions japonais possèdent des possiblités techniques d'embarquer des F-35B à décollage et atterrissage verticaux. Pourtant les essais de cet avion américain le plus récent révèlent des problèmes techniques toujours nouveaux.

    Tout porte à croire qu'une fois mis en dotation dans l'armée, les F-35 créeront des complications complémentaires liées à leur exploitation et entretien. En attendant il est difficile de prévoir quand les premières escadrilles américaines seront entièrement composées de F-35.

    Cela signifie que dans un avenir prévisible les adversaires potentiels des chasseurs chinois dans la zone des mers de Chine Orientale et Méridionale seront des avions modernisés de quatrième génération. La réalisation éternisée du projet F-35 offre à la Chine une chance de surmonter le retard de leur aviation de combat et peut-être même de surpasser l'adversaire éventuel...........Lire la suite: http://french.ruvr.ru/2014_07_24/Les-problemes-du-F-35-offrent-une-chance-a-la-marine-chinoise-9482/

    ReplyDelete

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